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In 2000, the total appropriated budget for Public Education was $2,144,523,100.

As of this year (FY 2009), the appropriated budget is up to $3,712,949,800, an increase of 73.1 percent.

In the same time period, student enrollment increased 15.7 percent.

6 Comments:

 Anonymous said...

Our students appreciate the effort of our legislature to catch up to past funding shortfalls. It gives some of us hope that Utah taxpayers will be willing to invest in the education of their children as long as their money isn't diverted to software companies and unfounded pet projects.

7/16/2008 8:09 AM  

 Credit where credit is due said...

Thank you to the state legislature for making public education funding a priority.

7/16/2008 10:42 AM  

 Anonymous said...

What has student achievement done over this same period? I doubt it's up 73.1%, let alone even 5%, over this same period.

7/16/2008 12:00 PM  

 for independent schools said...

Separate school and state, please. The taxpayers can no longer afford government-run schools.

7/17/2008 12:27 AM  

 Tom said...

I always enjoy the circus when any organization releases numbers that aren't comparable, and then compares them. (Or, by the way they're presented, invites others to.)

A more comparable measure would be to look at inflation-adjusted per student dollars.

We'd still find that funding per student has increased (kudos), but not as significantly as suggested.

Some back of the envelope numbers:
Using an estimated 4% annual (compounded) inflation,
$2.145B * (1.04)^8 = $2.935 B

Adjusting the 2009 number down to estimate what would be paid had the student population remained constant:

$3.713 B / 1.157 = $3.209 B

These calculations suggest the actual difference was an increase over the period of about $300 M, or about $35 M per year, for a total per-student change (using a population of ~538 K students) of $558 over the period (or, about sixty-something dollars per student per year).

The inflation assumption introduced an error range on the $300 M difference of about 5%, but it's still pretty close. Still, $300 M isn't nearly the same as $1.6 B, which the post suggested by presenting its numbers the way it did.

So, of course there wasn't a 73.1 % increase in achievement--there wasn't a 73.1 % increase in real per-student funding. No, there probably wasn't a 10% increase either, but at least it would be a more realistic expectation.

Behold the power of numbers.

7/18/2008 11:33 AM  

 Anonymous said...

Why did the legislature increase funding for Public Education this significantly?

7/18/2008 5:05 PM  

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